Education's Issue with Broadband Access

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have become all the rage in education, but accessibility issues have the potential to bring the model to its knees.

The Fairfax County Public School grappled with problem as students struggled to finish their homework using an e-textbook because they either didn’t have broadband access at home or a fast enough connection, according to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education. If a school district in a wealthy suburb of Washington, D.C., has students that have no or limited broadband access, how will less affluent districts or those in rural areas where broadband access is limited fare?

A Pew Internet & American Life Project survey last year found that only 66% of American adults have broadband access at home. Just one-fifth of elementary- and secondary-school teachers in the U.S. said that all or most of their students had access at home. In addition, many telecommunications providers have moved away from unlimited-access smartphone plans and Internet providers could just as easily move away from similar unlimited high-speed home options.

While some libraries are up to speed, many remain behind in the technology race, according to a 2012 study by the American Library Association. That research found that more than 40% of public libraries didn’t provide enough Internet access to meet the demands of patrons, while 65% reported not having enough public computers.

Of course, students can always head out to their neighborhood Starbucks, and maybe even their college store, since many retailers now offer high-speed access as a service to customers.

“The question is, ‘What is the new basic?’” said Martin Hilbert, research fellow at the Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism, University of Southern California. “There will always be inequality. But 100 years after the introduction of the car, not everybody has a Ferrari, but everyone has access to some form of motorized transportation through buses.”

UC Irvine Launches Open Chemistry

The University of California at Irvine is taking the massive open online course (MOOC) to another level with Open Chemistry. What’s different about the project is it provides students with video and other content for all the required courses a chemistry major would take, along with some electives and graduate courses, online and for free.

Students have access to 15 quarter-length undergraduate chemistry video lectures, which started with three classes of Organic Chemistry filmed by Professor James Norwick. The videos ended up on YouTube, where they have been viewed thousands of times. While UC Irvine is not offering credit through Open Chemistry, it does leave open the possibility that other institutions could use the videos to provide the laboratory experience and testing necessary for certification.

“The UCI Department of Chemistry has broken new ground by allowing students to follow a coherent and integrated pathway toward full mastery of undergraduate chemistry,” said Gary W. Matkin, dean of continuing education, distance learning, and summer session at UC Irvine, in a pressrelease. “This is the first time that students and professors can find a complete undergraduate major in a consistent and high-quality video format on a single web site.”

Wiley, OpenStax Make Strange bedfellows

John Wiley & Sons Inc. is in business to make a profit off the educational material it produces, while OpenStax College is a nonprofit organization that provides open educational materials (OER) to college students online for free. Those two very different approaches make their announced partnership seem odd at first glance.

The companies are going to collaborate on two new biology textbooks created by OpenStax College. The arrangement calls for Wiley to deliver the OpenStax content through its WileyPlus online environment, with Wiley trying to turn a profit by adding value to the content though its interactive learning tools.

“OpenStax College and Wiley are breaking new ground by working together to broaden access and add value to high-quality OER content,” said Joe Heider, senior vice president of Wiley Global Education, in a press release announcing the partnership. “By integrating OpenStax content with WileyPlus practice and assessment resources, this partnership gives students the option of paying a reduced price for a personalized experience that is proven to improve learning outcomes.”

The partnership also provides a way for Wiley to offer an introductory college biology text without developing one of its own. Some chapters of the OpenStax material are already online. The remainder are expected to be completed in the fall when Wiley will begin pilots for the WileyPlus college biology products.

“As I understand it, their mission is to improve the accessibility of affordable educational materials, and we actually share that goal,” Kaye Pace, vice president and executive publisher at Wiley, told Information Week. “We would like to offer students more attractive pricing.”

New Role for Hi-Ed Campuses? Just Ask

In the Internet age, the role of colleges and universities as bastions of knowledge and education may be in jeopardy, unless they adapt.

“We are awash in information,” said Michael Wesch in his Thought Leader educational session, The End of Wonder and the Age of Whatever, at CAMEX 2013 in Kansas City, MO. Wesch—associate professor of cultural anthropology, Coffman Chair for Distinguished Teaching Scholars, Kansas State University, Manhattan, and U.S. Professor of the Year—thinks higher education can no longer be a place just for the collection and exchange of information.

“We have to redefine college campuses as more than just information flow,” he said. “If we define them as information, we’re going to get beat.” He pointed to the vast array of information available on the web, online learning systems that interact and respond to students’ individual learning needs, and social media that enable students to connect with almost anyone.

A more critical role for hi-ed campuses, Wesch said, might be to encourage people to come together to raise and explore questions. “What if we redefined the university around questions?” he asked.

Questions, he added, generate cycles of curiosity and discovery to “create a life of wonder.” Too often, though, students focus on the administrative side of education. Wesch said he once stopped midway through a lecture and invited questions from his students about the topic. Instead, they wanted to know the deadline for papers and how much a test counted toward their final grade.

To take on this new role, campuses need to create an environment that nurtures questions and gives students the courage to speak up. “We need this space to be a place of awe and wonder,” Wesch said. “When you give students a sense of wonder, they start to see connections.”

Survey: Students Use More Native Apps

As more and more school districts, colleges, and universities turn to mobile devices to enhance learning, understanding how students use those devices becomes important. Purdue University conducted as survey in the fall of 2011 to find out which gadgets its students were using and if they had a preference between device-neutral web applications or “native” apps built for a specific platform.

Student Preferences of Mobile App Usage, by Kyle Bowen, director of informatics, and Matthew D. Pistilli, research scientist for information technology at Purdue, didn’t try to settle the debate on which mobile category was best, but rather tried to determine what was being used and on what type of device.

The report, recently released by Educause, found that 83% of the 1,566 responding students owned Android phones or iPhones and that the same percentage felt they had intermediate or advanced skills in using their preferred gadget. The study found a significant number of students spent more time using native apps to access course-related tasks and viewed the apps as faster and easier to use, but added that those numbers may have more to do with the marketing of apps.

“It is clear that students who own smartphones have owned them for some time—the vast majority for a year or more,” the researchers wrote. “Further, they spend hours each day consuming everything that smartphones have to offer. This level of usage presents a great opportunity for institutions to deliver new services and technologies—not by creating a new destination but by claiming a virtual footprint in a place where students are already spending considerable time.”

Amplify Tablet Ready for Classrooms

It seems as if a new tablet computer hits the market every week, but a New York-based company is betting its tablet will be a hit. Amplify Education Inc., part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., introduced its Amplify tablet at the South x Southwest education conference. The device that will come preloaded with everything a student needs to get through the school day.

The Amplify tablet is priced at $299 for Wi-Fi-only models and $349 for a 4G unit. Each device also requires a two-year service and materials bundle that adds $99 a year for Wi-Fi and $179 a year for the 4G model.

While somewhat pricey, the bundles provide all textbooks, lessons, tests, and e-books a student is assigned. Teachers will be able to run a class and see what web sites and lesson areas students are visiting, while the teacher dashboard will allow for instant polls and keep tabs on students through the “Eyes on Teacher” button that sends a message to every screen in the classroom.

“We must use technology to empower teachers and improve the way students learn,” Joel Klein, CEO of Amplify Education, told eSchool News. “At its best, education technology will change the face of education by helping teachers manage the classroom and personalize instruction.”

Instant connectivity between student and teacher is what Amplify developers believe sets their tablet apart from other devices, such as the Apple iPad.

“If you go to Best Buy or a retailer and buy a tablet off the shelf, it can’t do this,” said Stephen Smyth, president of the Amplify division that created the digital platform that delivers course material to the device, in an interview on NPR.org. “Really, what we’re trying to solve here is actually how to have teachers use tablets in the classroom environment.”

While creating a buzz, the Amplify tablet also has its detractors. Some in education worry the device is more about profit than education and will make it easier for politicians to make the case for eliminating school district costs through cutting teaching positions.

“It’s all part of the same vision they have for transforming education by privatizing it,” Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters in New York, told NPR. “And we have seen, not just in New York City but nationwide, an avid pillaging going on of public resources for private ends.”

Workshops Crank Out Ideas for Bookstore

Once upon a time, Foyles was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest bookstore because of its 30 miles of shelf space and the number of titles on display. In an effort to regain its former glory, the store, founded in London in 1903 by William and Gilbert Foyle, conducted a pair of workshops to discuss a move planned for 2014, what the new store should look like, and what the nature of the bookstore should be going forward.

The assembly of authors, poets, literary agents, booksellers, sales directors, technology developers, and librarians came up with plenty of ideas, such as the store providing bibliotherapy, which, when combined with writing therapy, has shown potential as treatment for depression. Other suggestions included providing personal shopping, membership clubs, writers in residences, listening ports for audiobooks, and services that would make the bookstore a social experience.

“Bookshops are often seen as old-fashioned, but these workshops give books a chance to be at the center of the conversation,” said Phil Jones, a blogger for The Bookseller, for an article in the The Telegraph.

“It was a fantastic project for us—after all, this is a chance to work on the most famous bookshop in the world,” said Alex Lifschutz, the architect designing the new Foyles location. “How many times in our life will we witness the rebirth of the bookshop?”

Such a workshop—with participants from faculty, staff, the community, and the student body—could be a catalyst for similar ideas and discussion in the college store. 

Ottawa's Online Program Adding Video

Ottawa University, a 7,000-student institution in Ottawa, KS, is partnering with Blackboard on a new strategic initiative giving students 24/7 access to learning opportunities through tools offered by Blackboard, regardless of the student’s location.

A goal of the initiative, dubbed Project Virtuoso, is to provide instruction to both in-class and remote students through videoconferencing. Students will also be able to work with faculty and staff through virtual office hours and instant messaging.

“This partnership promises to be a real game-changer for us and potentially all of higher education,” President Kevin C. Eichner said in a university press release.

The program will begin with the Ottawa business school program in the spring and will eventually link students and faculty on the university’s campuses in Ottawa, Kansas City, Arizona, Indiana, and Wisconsin, according to a report in Campus Technology.

Blackboard has agreed to establish the Blackboard Center for Academic Innovation and house it in the Gangwish Gibson Library and Student Center, which will begin construction in May. Blackboard will also help fund the university’s Curriculum Design Studio, which is working on a media unit to support the online collaboration.

Keeping Up with Broadband Demand

Most college students head to campus with an armload of electronic devices, from desktop and laptop computers to gaming systems, DVD players, and smartphones. Some of the gadgets are used for study, but many are for communication and entertainment purposes, which is causing problems for the institutions’ IT staffs as they struggle to keep up with bandwidth demand.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Ohio University, Athens, had to deal with Internet outages caused by students staying in their rooms and using their electronic devices during bad weather in March 2011. The outages happened despite efforts to increase bandwidth and limit use.

About 76% of chief information officers surveyed for a report from the Association of Information Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education said they worried about the increasing demand for bandwidth on their campus. In addition, 77% cited the increasing number of mobile devices as a major concern.

“A lot of these students are running YouTube, but what they’re doing is listening to music through YouTube, using up bandwidth, while they’re connected to the Internet studying,” said Jack Suess, chief information officer, University of Maryland-Baltimore County. “It’s just background noise.”

Netflix and music services make staying ahead of demand a headache, but it’s also expensive to provide the additional bandwidth. Ohio University reported its IT costs have risen nearly 107% from 2007 to this year. A 2012 survey of IT professionals found that while nearly 90% of respondents said their IT departments paid for the cost of network bandwidth, 60% reported not being able to recover the costs.

In Spring, Students' Fancy Turns to E-Texts

Come late spring, an interesting thing happens on college and university campuses, and it’s not related to romance or spring-break shenanigans: Students suddenly start buying more e-textbooks.

The number of purchasers isn’t huge, but it’s enough to create a noticeable spike, according to Kirk Bodick, vice president of sales for Akademos, Norwalk, CT, in his Flash session on the Akademos-TextbookX Online Bookstore Trends Report at CAMEX 2013 in Kansas City. The trends report tracked student book purchases for the last three years.

Late-spring e-book sales to students “reach the highest percentage of total book sales” for the academic year, Bodick said.

Bodick speculated the uptick came from students who had tried to avoid buying course materials for class and then found themselves needing the book to study for exams. Campus store attendees in the audience confirmed their print stock levels are low late in the semester, which might leave digital books as the only fast option for students. Bodick noted online book marketplaces such as Akademos do still have used copies available at that time “but it’s a question of the quality of condition.”

But if spring e-book sales go largely to procrastinators, why isn’t there a corresponding bump in sales late in the fall term?

Bodick said early purchases by summer-term students may be augmenting the spring numbers. Another audience member suggested students may be receiving iPads or other reading devices as holiday gifts, providing a ready backup for students hoping to get by without any book.

Another possibility is the start of the third term at quarter schools may be tipping spring e-book sales.

College Stores Can Help With Digital Output

Frank Lowney returned from CAMEX 2013 with a fresh appreciation for campus bookstore, but he has a key piece of advice for them.

Lowney,  project coordinator of the Digital Innovation Group, an initiative of the University System of Georgia and Georgia College & State University, went to Kansas City as a Thought Leader presenter at CAMEX, discussing course materials in a digital age.

He saw firsthand at the CAMEX trade show that collegiate retailers are diversifying their product mix, but wonders if that will be enough if students no longer go to the store to obtain required course materials. And, as he wrote in his TeleRead blog post, that day may be getting closer.

In the end, Lowney’s best advice for college stores is to explore every possible avenue to help institutions create and distribute their own digital course material.

“Campus bookstores, libraries, and university presses (where they exist) are natural allies in this kind of effort,” he wrote. “Faculty creating e-textbooks may have the content expertise, but they will need lots of help in all the other aspect of book production.”

Cool New Tech Products to Watch

Keeping up with the latest electronic devices can be daunting. Just last week, two new gadgets were unveiled—one that has real promise for campus stores and the other straight out of Flash Gordon.

The 3Doodler is a handheld device that creates 3-D objects from the same plastic strands used by 3-D printers. The device heats the plastic and dispenses the spaghetti-like strands in a variety of colors that are formed into objects. It can even use biodegradable plastic made from corn.

The device is handy and, at a suggested retail price of $75, could be very tempting to a college student looking to put a fresh spin on their art or science project. The manufacturer hopes to have the 3Doodler on store shelves by the fall.

On the heels of the 3Doodler launch, Google announced consumers would finally get a chance to see Glass, the augmented-reality eyewear the company has been working on for nearly two years. Google released a video depicting the voice-activated product creating video recordings and photos, and sharing images. 

 

Consumers who want to get that first look at Google Glass have to submit an entry to Twitter or Google+ explaining in 50 words or less (or create a video no longer than 15 seconds) why they should be allowed to pay $1,500 for the privilege of giving Glass a try.

Higher Ed's Digital Use is Underestimated

“If you still think digital course materials are three to five years away, then you’re already five to six years behind.”

That was Mark Nelson’s message to the college bookstore audience at his Digital Update educational session Feb. 22 at the 2013 Campus Market Expo (CAMEX) in Kansas City, MO. Nelson, chief information officer at NACS and vice president of NACS Media Solutions, disputed the notion that digital has been slow to take root in higher education.

Although many campus stores sell very few digital textbooks and report there is scant interest in electronic course materials at their institutions, Nelson contended that’s hardly the whole picture.

Digital is much more prevalent in higher education than many people realize, he said, in part because they tend to think of “digital” as merely a PDF equivalent of a print textbook and don’t count things such as online tutoring tools, adaptive learning programs, and course management systems.

“About a third of the revenues for the two largest textbook publishers are now from digital products and services,” Nelson said. MyMathLab, Pearson’s interactive web-based course supplement to its math and statistics books, “outsells the best print textbook three to one,” he added.

“Most digital business is native digital products or digital-born products that were never print,” he said. Traditional textbook publishers are developing many of these products and services, along with a rapidly growing roster of companies moving into digital content distribution for the first time. “A lot of new players, a lot,” Nelson emphasized.

He also took issue with reports that students would choose print textbooks over digital, saying that’s no longer a major factor. “A preference for print is not driving purchases any more,” he said.

Columbia Basin to Mine Social Media Data

Colleges and universities have many ways to gather information on their students, from course selection to analyzing social media usage. Columbia Basin College (CBC), Pasco, WA, is working on a plan to put such information to use.

The college is proposing to track its students by classes and grades, archived records, and information generated by students on social networks, particularly Facebook since students use it to list preferences on a whole range of issues, according to a report in eCampus News. It’s hoped the information will give the school a clearer understanding about best teaching methods, subjects students are interested in, and the services they need.

CBC’s timing is practically flawless. The University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research recently released a survey of 456 four-year colleges and universities in the 2010-11 academic year that showed Twitter use has expanded 84% since 2008-09 and 98% of responding schools reported using Facebook.

The problem for CBC is its computer system is outdated and the data it wants to use are scattered across servers, networks, and storage locations that aren’t connected. The college is meeting with a data-management firm about its plans but understands the project will likely take more than a year to complete.

Making MOOCs Earn Their Keep

EdX may be a nonprofit organization, but it still has to pay its bills. It’s too early to tell exactly how the massive open online course (MOOC) provider which started with a $30 million investment from Harvard and MIT, will actually make money, but The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on the platform's plans to create revenue moving forward.

The first approach, called the university self-service model, will allow schools to use the edX platform for free as long as edX is paid a portion of the revenue any course generates for the institution. EdX would collect an upfront fee and then would receive a 50% cut of any revenue above the threshold.

In the second plan, called the edX-supported model, the company serves as a consultant and design partner for any course developed. EdX gets more upfront cash in this model, but allows the university to earn 70% of revenue the course generates after that. Schools can also choose a payment method on a course-by-course basis, according to the agreement.

The edX agreement also provides the company with all net profits from any third-party contract, such as book sales and proctoring services. EdX already has a deal with Pearson Vue to proctor MOOC examinations. It is also considering charging students for certification from those proctored exams, charging publishers for referring students to related textbooks, and for referring students to employment services.

NACS' indiCo to Help Independent Stores

The news coming out of Kansas City during CAMEX 2013 Friday was about the new NACS subsidiary, indiCo, created to help independent college stores. It was also announced that NACS Inc. had signed a letter of intent to purchase the assets of Connect2One from Nebraska Book Co.

IndiCo, expected to officially launch on April 1, joins together NACS Media Solutions (NMS), OnCampus Research, and NACS Business Development with the goal of encouraging solutions and partnerships in support of independent college stores. In addition, the company will conduct more extensive research, data mining, and benchmarking for the industry.

Initially, indiCo will strive to gain deeper insights into the demands and preferences of student consumers. Many of the initiatives already under way, such as Grow Custom and Regional Print-on-Demand from NMS and studies conducted by OnCampus Research, will continue.

Connect2One would be integrated into indiCo to provide new ways for NACS to fulfill its mission to help independent college stores evolve.

"The alignment of Connect2One and indiCo demonstrates an exciting and renewed commitment by NACS and Nebraska Book Co. to the independent college store," said Brian Cartier, CEO of NACS. "We know that the expertise and reputation of Connect2One and its 25-year history of success will have a positive impact on college stores."

More details on indiCo will be available after its launch.

See 3-D Printing in Action

There’s been plenty of buzz about 3-D printers lately. The devices create three-dimensional objects from digital scans and are considered an educational trend to watch in the New Media Consortium’s Horizon Report 2013 Higher Education Edition because the cost of the machines has been falling to the point where they have become an affordable option for schools and colleges to purchase.

National Public Radio teamed with Nicolas Burrus, co-founder of the 3-D scanning firm manctl, to scan an NPR correspondent in Germany and then have the imagery printed on a 3-D printer in Menlo Park, CA, with the resulting object shown in the video below.

“We are going to see more and more applications built that are going to allow you—people who don’t necessarily know how to do digital design—to be empowered to make the things that they want, just the way they want them,” Bre Pettis, founder of the company that produced the 3-D printer used, said in a report on NPR.

The big concern connected to 3-D printing technology that has yet to be adequately addressed is copyright infringement. Firms have already created web sites that allow people to share 3-D scans, some that appear to be very similar to copyrighted images, such as Yoda from the Star Wars films.

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Pearson, Top Hat Monocle Partner

While clickers have become part of college students’ everyday lives, it was only a matter of time before something better came along. The new distribution agreement between Top Hat Monocle and Pearson may offer just that.

The agreement allows students who buy participating Pearson textbooks to purchase an additional subscription for the Top Hat Monocle interactive learning application tool. For $20 per semester or $38 for a five-year subscription, students gain access to a tool that replaces the classroom clicker with their mobile device, allowing them to answer questions or polls in class, run interactive demonstrations, download course notes, and submit homework.

Pearson is also working to integrate its higher education content into the Top Hat Monocle platform and will make its high-demand titles available on it at the start of the fall 2013 semester. 

New Software Turns PDFs into E-Textbooks

Advance is a new platform that allows publishers to create interactive electronic textbooks at no cost from PDFs and other flat document files. Education software company Kno introduced the new interactive learning platform, which is designed to convert documents into interactive textbooks and then enhance those textbooks with additional functionality, according to an article in Campus Technology.

The first part of Advance, Kno Ingest, makes it possible to convert flat files at a high volume. Kno Book Enhancer provides the tools to enhance functionality and update materials, including 3-D objects and video, while the third part is Kno Assessment, which lets publishers create quizzes and review material.

Kno Advance is available for both K-12 and higher education textbook publishers and is accessible through the web or applications that support Android, iOS, and Windows.

All-Rental Campus Tries Out E-Textbooks

Like many higher education campuses across the U.S. this academic year, the University of Wisconsin-Stout is testing the use of electronic textbooks for undergraduate courses. What’s different about this pilot is that UW-Stout is one of maybe 15-20 schools that’s had an extensive textbook rental program in place for decades.

In other e-text trials, a significant number of students said they would rather study from paper books but would be willing to trade them in for digital ones if it meant considerable savings. The students in Stout, though, already enjoy such savings with print rentals. Currently, the school charges a $170 annual book rental fee—the same amount students on other campuses might pay to buy just one textbook.

For UW-Stout students, that means price wouldn’t motivate them to opt for digital course materials. However, all Stout undergrads have their own laptop computers, and that may have played an influential role in boosting student satisfaction with e-textbooks. In other pilots, students who had to use immovable desktop machines to access digital course materials were far less happy with the experience.

A recent report from UW-Stout showed students had mixed feelings about the pilot going in. More than half were interested in trying e-textbooks but almost two-thirds would have preferred to stick with paper, given a choice. The pilot is now in its second semester and has expanded from 200 students in five courses last fall to 1,500 in 40 spring-term classes.

The report says students appreciate the interactive qualities of the digital texts and not having to haul as many books around. They also like not having to pick up and drop off rental books each term.

Study Puts E-Ink to the Test

One of the selling points of a dedicated electronic reader is the belief that E Ink is better for a reader’s eyes than the LCD screens used in tablet computers. Now, researchers from the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, have released a study suggesting it might actually be easier to read on the LCD screen, and that retention of reading material is the same no matter how the reading is done.

A group of 57 Generation-Xers and senior citizens were tested using an electroencephalogram (EEG) machine to measure brain activity while the reading. The tests showed that while Gen-X readers used slightly less energy to read on a tablet than an e-reader or paper book, the senior citizens clearly spent less energy and time reading on the tablet.

Both test groups also showed a slightly higher error rate in answering questions after using either an e-reader or tablet device, although the researchers considered the rate small enough to be insignificant.

“Here we have a study that suggests digital textbooks are not better for students,” wrote Note Hoffelder in his blog post on The Digital Reader. “It’s a pity that this probably won’t slow down the mad dash towards the next hot trend.”

Students Aren't Flocking to E-Textbooks

Students are getting digital course materials from somewhere, it’s just not clear where. The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) found in its third installment of the Student Attitudes Toward Content in Higher Education Report that the number of students using course materials is declining, rentals may be peaking, and students still prefer print over digital as long as their parents are paying.

“Migration to digital is a mystery,” said Len Vlahos, executive director of BISG, during a Making Information Pay conference. “College students are beginning to migrate, but we don’t know where to.”

Vlahos will report on the study on Saturday, Feb. 23, as part the education sessions at CAMEX 2013 in Kansas City, MO.

The BISG report found the percentage of students participating in the survey for the fall 2012 academic semester using digital content as their main source of course materials remained the same from 2011. It also noted that fewer than 60% of the responding students used physical textbooks for their coursework in 2012, down from just under 70% in 2011.

About 14% of the students are using integrated learning systems (ILS) and say the online platforms that include course materials, study groups, and interactive and social media features are helping them improve their grades more than textbooks or e-texts. In addition, a third of the students are now using tablet computers, double the percentage from a year ago, but only 5% are using the tablets as their primary tool for studying.

Tablets Are Popular, But Issues remain

Last July, Apple reported it sold one million iPads to schools and universities, roughly doubling the number it sold the previous year and solidifying the tablet computer as the technology of choice for many in the education market.

“Education, traditionally slow to adopt new technology, is bucking tradition snapping up iPads faster than many people have expected,” wrote Beth Bacon in a blog post at Digital Book World. “K-12 schools all over the United States are integrating tablets into their classrooms and opting for iPads instead of laptops or desktops.”

Students like using the lightweight devices and can make use of all sorts of interactive features that facilitate learning. Tablets are portable, powerful, easy to use, and available at lower prices than most desktop computers.

Cost is still the top concern facing technology in education. Bacon reports on a recent survey of K-12 educators that found 57% identified lack of funds as the biggest challenge to incorporating tablets into their classrooms. Other top issues in the use of tablets according to the survey, include problems some students have with using the touchscreen keyboard and teachers’ difficulty monitoring what their students are doing on the tablets.

Will E-Books Join Internet in Making Us Stupid?

In author Nancy McCormack’s recently published article published a journal article titled Are E-Books Making Us Stupid? Why Electronic Collections Mean Trouble for Libraries and Their Patrons, she questions whether this migration to digital is causing both librarians and their patrons to lose a few brain cells. 

We’ve all likely done something in the last day or weeks that made us shake our heads, such as walking upstairs to get something and having no idea what it was once the top step was cleared. Some, such as McCormack, claim this lack of focus has followed technological advances.

Google’s search capabilities has for years been assessed blame. The younger generation, accustomed to immediate answers and reactions, has little patience waiting for answers that take more than a few keystrokes. Thus, they lose interest after just a few moments of searching.  

Now, e-books are beginning to be targeted, just as Google has. As more people turn to e-books, public and academic libraries are migrating to provide those digital items. In the process, vanishing are the original print-and-paper books that once filled shelves. In an effort to deliver e-books to patrons, McCormack wonders, are libraries actually taking the next step in killing our ability to concentrated?

Printed books have for years helped people focus and think deeply, which has led to all these great advancements in technology. Could those accomplishments now be the undoing of our ability to concentrate?

To access a free copy of McCormack’s article, go to www.igi-global.com/newsroom/archive/digital-technology-new-wave-stupid/1464/.

Student's Social Media Habits at High Risk

Having students use their own electronic devices for schoolwork is one of the newest trends in education as administrators work to bridge the technology gap in their classrooms. However, a study from Cisco found those students are also at high risk for security issues, according to an article at ITPortal.com.

The networking firm reported in its 2013 Annual Security Report that online shopping sites are 21 times more likely and search engines are 27 times more likely to release malware on personal computers or mobile devices than pornography or gambling sites. The riskiest sites for malware are online advertisements, which are 182 times more likely to spread a virus.

In addition, the Cisco Connected World Technology Report suggested that Generation Y respondents don’t really care. It found that 91% of Generation Y employees said the age of privacy is over and a third claim not to be worried about data about them available online.

“Unfortunately, what the security studies show is the next-generation workforce’s lifestyles are also introducing security challenges that companies have never had to address to this scale,” Cisco said in a release.

The report found that more than 33% of all infections from global malware occur in the United States, while cases of Android malware rose 2,577% in 2012. The good news is the threat to mobile malware was just 0.5% of the total.

“Today, we live a blended work-personal life,” said John Stewart, senior vice president of Cisco global government and corporate security. “The hackers know this, and the security threats that we encounter online, such as embedded web malware while visiting popular destinations like search engines, retailers, social media sites, and smartphone/tablet apps, no longer threaten only the individual; they threaten our organizations by default.”

Libraries Take Names, Keep E-Book Score

In an effort to help member libraries negotiate acquisitions of e-books to lend, the American Library Association (ALA) issued the E-Book Business ModelScorecard to use in sizing up publishers’ e-book programs.

Released Jan. 25 just as ALA’s Midwinter Meeting was getting underway in Seattle, WA, the scorecard is a follow-up to the association’s August 2012 report E-Book Business Models for Public Libraries. Both are part of ALA’s increasingly intensive campaign to pressure publishers into making more e-books available to libraries, especially frontlist titles, and at more lenient terms.

In particular, ALA wants libraries to be able to own e-books outright, not license them, a scenario that scares the pants off publishers fearful that easy and unlimited e-book borrowing means patrons will never again buy a book.

The scorecard lists 15 factors to consider, each with a five-point rating scale. For example, no. 8 deals with the number of loans a publisher allows for each “purchased” e-book: one point for none, three for a fixed number, four if the limit is retired after a certain amount of time or the title goes out of print, and five if the library can actually own the e-books and/or resell ones that no one borrows.

About the same time the scorecard came out, ALA learned Macmillan is finally getting its library e-book pilot off the ground. While libraries are pleased another big publisher is testing e-book loans, the pilot comes with plenty of restrictions from the library perspective. Only backlist titles from the Minotaur mystery/crime imprint will be available, about 1,200 in all. For $25 per title, libraries buy the right to lend it out 52 times (one borrower at a time) or for a two-year period, whichever comes first. After that, they’ll have to pay another $25 to loan it again.

Penguin, which has been conducting a pilot program in New York libraries, is expanding it to other libraries. The program gives libraries access to e-books about six months after their release to the consumer market. As in the Macmillan pilot, libraries don’t own the title but license loaning rights for one year.

Report Predicts Higher-Ed Tech Trends

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) and tablet computers are already having an impact on the ways students learn and teachers teach, according to the NMC Horizon Report 2013 Higher Education Edition, released by the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the Educause Learning Initiative. The study sees gaming, 3-D printers, and wearable technologies as trends to watch in the next five years.

“Campus leaders and practitioners across the world use the report as a springboard for discussion around significant trends and challenges,” said Larry Johnson, CEO of NMC, in a Campus Technology report. “The biggest trend identified by the advisory this year reflects the increasing adoption of openness on and beyond campuses, be it in the form of open content or easy access to data. This transition is promising, but there is now a major need for content curation.”

The free downloadable report breaks down technology into categories representing near-term items that are already making an impact, midterm technologies that should be making an impact within two years, and long-term technologies that are still three to five years away from wide implementation.

MOOCs and tablet computers made the near-term list because of how quickly both have been adopted into higher education.

The use of learning analytics is in the midterm category for a second straight year because of the continued development of applications that help students retain information through interaction with other students. Use of gaming is also on the rise in classrooms as an instructional tool.

In the long term, the report suggests 3-D printing will become more important as the price of the printers continues to fall and because they provide students with authentic reproductions of shapes and objects being studied. Wearable technology may sound a bit farfetched but items such as jewelry that can alert chemistry students to dangerous fumes or eyewear that connects to the Internet through voice commands (see video below) are already being developed.

“The NMC Horizon Report goes beyond simply naming technologies; it offers examples of how they are being used, which serves to demonstrate their potential,” said Malcolm Brown, director of the Educause Learning Initiative. “The report also identifies the trends and challenges that will be key for learning across all three adoption horizons. This makes the Horizon Report essential for anyone planning the future of learning at their institution.”

Women Needed to Teach MOOCs

While massive open online courses (MOOCs) are leading a revolution in higher education, they are at the same time missing a valuable opportunity, according to Lisa Martin and Barbara F. Walter, political science professors at te University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of California San Diego, respectively, in an op-ed piece they co-wrote for the Los Angeles Times and appears in eCampus News.

The professors suggest MOOCs have a chance to export gender equality and that classes taught by women could influence how people around the world think about the roles women play in society if only more of the courses were taught by women. They point out that of the 205 courses offered by Coursera, just 34 are taught by women and another 14 are taught by both men and women.

On a university level, 33% of the Princeton permanent faculty is female and yet no women are teaching any of the MOOCs the school offers through Coursera. The figures are a bit better at the University of Pennsylvania where 12.5% of the MOOCs offered are being taught by women, who make up 33% of the faculty.

Martin and Walter say it’s unclear why so few women are MOOC instructors, but believe female academics have a chance to lead the way in broadening equality and education if they take the lead in teaching MOOCs.

Survey Charts New Ed-Tech Trends

Smartphones, social media, game-based learning, and open textbooks will all be part of the education technology landscape for 2013, according to a survey conducted by the ed-tech web site Edudemic.

The Edudemic survey results are presented in a graphic that predicts more focus on text messaging as a way to connect with students on everything from class assignment deadlines to upcoming campus events. Already, 93% of responding students say they send text messages and 89% of the institutions use text messaging for emergency communications.

While it may not be surprising that the use of social media on campus will continue to grow, it is eye-opening that every responding school reported having a Facebook page and 80% have a Twitter account. Eighty-three percent of the schools report using social media to connect with alumni and 38% use it to reach the local community.

The survey forecasts more institutions will make use of online educational resources, such as massive open online courses and open digital course materials. Affordable 3-D printers will become more accessible and may someday be a fixture in every classroom, while the use of game-based learning and e-books will become more accepted.

Earning a Graduate Degree on an iPad

As textbooks and lectures are being replaced by technology, St. Mary’s University, Minneapolis, MN, has developed a program to eliminate the need for classrooms, at least on the graduate level.

The school has designed accelerated courses for working professionals using Apple iPads for graduate degrees in project management, human resources, and organizational leadership. The course materials take advantage of the device’s easy accessibility to information and convenience provided though apps in the Apple Store.

“Adult learners are adaptive learners,” Bob Andersen, director of instruction technology for the university, told eCampus News. “We want to bridge the gap between work and academia.”

The program lets students and faculty conduct class discussions through social media, video chat, e-mail, and texting to enhance the learning process, according to Marcel Dumestre, vice president of graduate and professional programs. Students still have to write standard term papers, but professors consolidate assigned reading or instructor-created videos into a form that is manageable for a full-time professional to work on over a lunch hour.

The university has 200 students worldwide taking iPad graduate courses through the program which is currently being taught by 15 instructors. St. Mary’s plans to add a dozen more degree programs over the next five years.

“Our students find value not only in instruction; they find value in networking and interacting with other students,” Dumestre said. 

Free Guide Looks at Custom Publishing

Custom-published course materials have been available for a long time, but represented only a tiny fraction of all college and university class materials, largely due to cost, technical limitations, poor business practices, and lack of awareness of the benefits to students, among other barriers.

Those hurdles are crumbling, though. In the wake of calls for more affordable course materials and more support for learning outcomes, custom publishing is becoming a more attractive and viable option, one that more faculty are choosing once they understand how it works.

When done correctly, “smart” custom materials encompass precisely the content a professor needs students to learn—and no more. Students get the content at a much-reduced cost and are therefore more likely to acquire and use it. Publishers and campus bookstores typically see higher sell-through with custom materials, with fewer student complaints about prices and classes not using all the required content.

To help faculty, bookstores, and other campus stakeholders understand the advantages of “smart” custom publishing and how to determine when it’s right for a particular course, NACS Media Solutions (NMS) compiled the Guide to Custom as a resource and starting point.

The free digital guide explains the ins and outs of custom publishing and can be shared with others interested in learning more. Also, printed booklet versions of the guide can be ordered from NMS through The NACS Store (enter “Guide to Custom” in the Product Search box).

Teachers Learn Technology from Students

Dr. Roland Rios, director of instructional technology, Fort Sam Houston Independent School District, San Antonio, TX, faced the challenge of training faculty on new technology tools on a limited budget. His solution, captured in a video by TechSmith Corp., was to create a team of student interns to instruct teachers on how to put the technology to best use.

Report: Students Moving to Digital

While some studies suggest students are still happy with printed textbooks, the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) has found the movement to digital content is gaining steam.

In its latest installment of the ongoing study Student Attitudes Toward Content in Higher Education, BISG reports a 12% drop in student preference for print over digital text, from 72% preferring print in November 2011 to 60% late last year. At the same time, student satisfaction with digital textbooks slipped from 30% in the 2011 survey to 26% in the newest report.

“Simply transferring a print textbook to a digital format doesn’t work with this crowd,” said Angela Bole, deputy executive director of BISG, in a release. “This is a market that’s tremendously dynamic and changing rapidly. It’s essential to watch it closely.”

The study also found that only half of the students in the survey were willing to buy the latest version of their assigned textbook, while rental as the preferred option has increased from 8% of respondents in 2011 to 13% in 2012. In addition, the use of tablet computers to read digital textbooks grew to 37% of responding students in 2012, while the use of laptop computers fell to 72%.

Digital Reading Up, But Kids Still Like Print

A new study shows that even though children are jumping on the digital bandwagon, many still prefer print content to digital. Forty-six percent of the 1,074 children, ages 6-17, responding to the biennial Kids & Family Reading Report from Scholastic Inc., said they had read an e-book, nearly double the percentages from in the 2010 survey.

In addition, half of the respondents said they would read more with better e-book access. The young people and their parents like the fact that e-books have dictionaries, highlighting features, and skill-building activities built in.

At the same time, respondents said that 80% of the books they read for fun were still the print versions and 58% of those surveyed always prefer print, even when an e-book is available. Respondents said they liked to hold a print book more than an electronic device, while their parents preferred print because books don't require batteries. 

The same appears to be true when it comes to college students.

“Our students don’t really want to have e-books,” Julie K. Bartley, chair of the geology department at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN, told The Chronicle of Higher Education. “What I hear from them a lot of times is that they feel some sort of comfort in being able to hold the thing in their hands.”

Publishers are responding by offering “print-plus” alternatives, where options for textbooks are often print and digital, along with extras and enhancements. For instance, Norton does not offer an electronic version of its Anthology series, but does offer access codes to online quizzes, photo galleries, and audio recordings, for which students pay a fee.

“Increasingly, the issue is not either/or,” said Tim Stookesberry, vice president and editorial director for global education at publisher John Wiley & Sons. “It’s a both-and-all conversation.”

Bill of Rights Created for Online Students

Sebastian Thrun, founder of the massive open online course (MOOC) provider Udacity, recently organized a discussion on the future of higher education and how technology fits in. The conference produced a document, called “A Bill of Rights and Principles for Learning in the Digital Age” that provides a framework to protect the interests of online students.

The document lists the “rights” online students should demand of institutions and companies offering online courses and technology tools. The list includes the right to learn, to privacy, to create public knowledge, and to own personal data and intellectual property. The document also sets out a list of principles that online learning should try to achieve, including value, flexibility, innovation, experimentation, and play.

“The idea is to have a larger conversation about this so that MOOCs don’t become the Facebook or Instagram of higher education—where you sign up for some free service and it turns out that you’re the product being sold,” said Cathy Davidson, an English professor at Duke University who helped write the text.

The authors hope it will become the framework to guide schools on using online tools and platforms, but it’s not without critics. One issue is that no online students took part in the discussion.

“If the result is a big conversation that gets people engaged and involved, including self-learners, then it’s a success,” said Philipp Schmidt, co-founder of the open-education site Peer 2 Peer University and one of the authors of the Bill of Rights, to Inside Higher Education. “This is not intended to be anything remotely like a final version.”